DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) More African Americans die from diseases caused by cigarette smoking than from AIDS, homicide, drugs and accidents combined. In addition, smoking intensifies a number of serious health problems that disproportionately affect African Americans including heart disease, cancer, stroke, low birth weight, and infant mortality. African Americans report smoking fewer cigarettes per day, prefer high nicotine, mentholated brands, and are noted to be highly dependent on nicotine. Higher cotinine levels, the major metabolite of nicotine, have been described in black women, in comparison to other race-gender groups, in spite of smoking fewer cigarettes per day. Furthermore, there is a lower smoking cessation quit rate among African American women compared to Caucasian women. Alternative explanations for increased exposure as indicated by elevated cotinine levels in African American women are warranted. The overall aim of the FIRST award proposal is to examine effects of selected biobehavioral and contextual factors on smoke constituent exposure and nicotine dependence in African American and Caucasian women. Three separate studies to be conducted in the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) with black and white women are proposed. 1) To characterize cotinine elimination trends, subjects will be admitted for a 7-day inpatient study of smoking abstinence during which plasma cotinine levels will be obtained. The effect of race, body composition, and menthol preference on cotinine trends will be analyzed. 2) During a 4 hr study, the effects of smoking topography (e.g. puff duration and volume and lung retention time), race, menthol preference, and body composition on plasma nicotine trends post-cigarette will be analyzed. Menthol exposure will be examined. 3) During a 6-day inpatient study with a counterbalanced design, smoke constituent exposure as measured by plasma nicotine and carbon monoxide increases pre to post-cigarette, as well as puff duration and volume, and lung retention time, will be contrasted across three conditions of nicotine availability of usual, increased and restricted smoking rates. Information about metabolic and behavioral issues concerning nicotine will add to a limited knowledge base about nicotine dependence in African American women and provide scientific support for specific targeted smoking cessation interventions, in conjunction with or separate from nicotine replacement.